Tamanian Tea: A Visit to Chado

Some time back in February I wrote to May King, the Autralian tea expert, to ask for some advice. I had a trip planned to Tasmania, and needed to find my fix of decent tea at some point. She recommended Chado : The Way of Tea as having the best reputation in the whole state of Tasmania, although she admitted that she had never got over to try it out. So, May King, this is my verdict... 10/10 This tea shop is run by one of the founding members of the Violent Femmes, Brian Ritchie, and his wife Varuni Kulasekera. Neither of them is Australian as I had first assumed, but now I have visited Tasmania and experienced it for myself, that they would want to move there is less of a surprise. Hobart is a metropolitan city in a wild land that is packed full of forests, hills and wildlife. Hobart is pretty intense, but Chado certainly breaks the mould. As you enter from the busy street, a meditational calm stretches out to you so that you are immersed before the door even closes behind you. We were welcomed by a very nice lady at the door, and our eyes were drawn towards the source of the japanese music in the room. It was Brian Ritchie himself, now an accomplished Japanese flute player, playing for the guests. We were taken into another room, decorated in red and black in keeping with the japanese style. Both walls were covered from top to bottom in shelves covered in tea tins with every type of tea. The menu is excellent, with descriptions of all of the teas to help with your decision. Unfortunately for me, that kind of detail always leaves me with more questions than answers, but luckily our waitress (I'd rather call her a Tea Advisor actually) knew every detail and helped us with our decision. My girlfriend Ange settled on a Chai, and I decided on Golden Buddha Oolong.

The tea is served in a small teapot, with a beatuiful ceramic cup to drink it from. Then there is a small dish to put the leaves on when they have brewed enough, and, best of all, a thermos flask of water for resteeping. I've never been to a tea shop that gives you a thermos of water like this, and it seems like the perfect solution, allowing you to resteep without either asking for more water, or having a pot of water that goes cold as quickly as the tea. In all, I brewed the tea four times, and every time it was brilliant. One of the best oolongs I have ever had, and it was still excellent and full of flavour on the fourth steep. Even Ange (who is not quite as much of a tea enthusiast as I am) was impressed with this. We stopped to talk to our Tea Advisor for quite a while in the end, she was very welcoming and willing to chat; she didn't even get impatient when we asked to smell tin after tin after tin of different teas and ended up buying three types of tea, all of which are now at home being enjoyed regularly. A peppermint tea, lemongrass and ginger, and of course my Golden Buddha Oolong. The only note of caution is: Don't go on a Monday like we did first time round... it's not open

Question #2

What happened here?



A food fight or merely a cress mishap?

Fun in the house

My relationship with my housemates can best be described as "increasing fondness".

Isn't Maria radishing?

Yes, she certainly is radishing, or she was when the picture was taken

She likes her hair to be real orange; she uses tangerines

The event has been on the horizon for a while. When the house went girly and the henna came out. The girls told me that they wanted me to join in, and having never tried dyeing my hair before, I gave in quickly and joined the party.

To do that, I had to go into Lush. I was horrified. I have always walked past Lush, blinked a little at the tackily applied bright colours, coughed briefly at the stench exuded from the dimly lit shop, and walked straight on. Out of all the shops in town, this is the one that appeals least. It advertises various crumbly blocks of "stuff", containing something "essential" for your well-being. But this is apparently THE PLACE to get henna, because it is good at having organic things that are healthy and ethical, and henna is healthy and organic and presumably ethical too (as I have learned). I felt every muscle in my body tense as I came up to the shop, resisted the urge to go on to HMV instead, and set foot inside. The shop assistant who looked least scary (he had a beard and may not have washed in the last couple of hours, shock horror) kindly tried to make eye contact as he wrapped some of their trademark crumbly blocks, but I resisted, knowing that it would take a moment to gain the confidence to speak and the breath not to cough. Indeed, my first breath was stuttering and shallow, but I didn't cough and possibly also didn't even grimace too much. I tried in vain to get my bearings, but every small surface was covered in crumbly blocks of different colours and sizes that smelled too badly to get too close and read the label. Having seen my way around though, I went to the shop assistant, the one with the beard, and asked him about it. He was actually very friendly, to my joy. He didn't mind that I had no comprehension of anything, and explained what you do, how much I needed and which type to use (yes, they come in different colours). He guessed that I was connected to Jo, who had come in the day before and warned him that a houseful of people would all descend on him for henna imminently. As I left, I reflected that it had not been so scary after all, and that if the man was there next time, I could probably brave the stench and crumbly blocks to go in again.

I arrived back in the evening to find the first henna-ing already underway. Maria had henna'ed her hair last december in a ginger colour that all the boys seemed to love, and was keen to have it re-done. I should guess that the attention from the boys didn't enter into the decision, but it certainly made the rest of the girls think... Jo couldn't have anything too extreme (what would Chris say?!), but the others launched into it with much abandon! Go them! So we took it in turns to take the hotseat and have the henna applied.


Henna is like poo. Of course, it starts off as a smelly, crumbly block, but it is heated with a bit of water until it gets properly pooey and warm, and even more smelly. Then someone spreads it into your hair, making sure it's all covered while trying to miss the floor, your skin and your clothes, all of which stain. Next it is covered in cling film, and you just wait for the colour to seep into your hair, while the smell attacks and attacks your nostrils unrelentingly. It was JUST TYPICAL that my hair was darkest and so took the longest, and I left it 4 1/2 hrs before washing it off.

Of course, the girls were drinking wine and listening to the Madonna cover of American Pie, just to make the evening more like a girly sleepover. Then Jo decided it would be a good moment to paint my nails. She cornered me while I read my book, and reminded me that I had agreed to it at some unspecified point in the past, in return for occasional football related conversation. And, while the conversations in the house about football have been very occasional indeed, I went along with it, probably caving in more easily than I should have. About 2 nails in, I realised my mistake, but there was no going back. I take full responsibility for it, I can't really blame Jo except for her timing, I could have refused at any moment.

But I was traumatised. I went into the shower to wash off the vile stuff, and all the poo-stuff ran down my face suffocating me most horribly. I looked down at my hands and gasped as I noticed my nails, breathing in some henna-water, leaving me spluttering. And did the henna do anything to my *black* hair? Did it hell! Why no, no, it didn't! Yes, I'll admit that in daylight you can stand at the right angle and looked carefully at the way it glistens brownishly, but did it change colour? No, of course not! In lectures the next day I had comment after comment about my nails and how silly they looked, but not one about my hair. Pah!

The others look great of course. Maria looks stunningly ginger as before, Louisa looks similarly wonderful with the same colour, Louise has gone a very sexy dark brown colour that glistens nicely and is a bit more understated, and Jo has highlights of ginger that make her hair more interesting somehow, while leaving her hair effectively her normal blond (who'd really change their hair from her pretty blond anyway?)

So of course they want to do it again. Now, in my book, trying everything once, from bungee jumping to sushi, is important, so I do not regret any of this for a second, but I am not doing it again. I'll watch if they'd like male company, or leave the house otherwise

My Grandma introduced

This is Grandma. She has travelled all over the world, but likes nothing better than sitting at home with a piece of cake and a cup of tea and telling stories of her life or of the books she has been reading. She doesn't often leave her flat these days, she's just content where she is and prefers to stay in her comfort zone. She's amazing, so full of knowledge and just a lovely sweet old lady.

Now imagine her with a megaphone!

Malaysian food

The food in Malaysia was fantastic. Lots of chinese style food as well as malaysian specialities. I love chinese food, and malaysian food is pretty good too!

Something I will remember for a long time is a pudding that we had after a very filling buffet dinner of Malaysian food, we were given a bowl, piled as high as would fit with food. It was mainly ice, with a kind of juice at the bottom that tasted vaguely of lychee and contained two jelly-like substances, one of which was little brown cubes and one was bluish stringy things. "Sprinkled" on top was a sauce that seemed to contain mainly sweetcorn and then some chopped nuts on top. Gradually the flavoured ice-stuff melted and we were left with a bowl of witches potion. If anyone knows what it's called, please let me know. It is apparently meant to cool you on a hot evening after a hot meal, and luckily it seemed that we weren't meant to finish it completely, because although I love trying new things, it was a strange taste and there was bloody loads!

Something more horrific in some ways was a large hall in Kota Kinabalu given over to restaurants serving fish where you can choose which animal to eat. Now, personally I don't have any problems with that, if the fish are kept in good conditions. After all, we should face up to what we eat and not try to trick ourselves that food didn't have a life first. However, the tiger prawns were kept in little plastic bottles where they could hardly move. Apparently they are dangerous and will attack the chef when they pick it out of the water, so they are forced to keep them like that. However, at that point, it is surely preferable to kill them straight away before they get to the restaurant and eat them when they are slightly less fresh. I left feeling distinctly uncomfortable and amazed by the scale of it - the hall was probably a square measuring 100m in each direction, with stacks of fish tanks all the way around the sides.

On the whole though, I love their diet of noodles or rice with varieties of stir-fried meat and veg with or without sauce. I could live with that!

Our guide on the river Kinabatangan

Sam was our guide on the trip, and he was fantastic. He had an ability to see monkeys, birds, lizards, crocodiles, wild boar, orang utans and elephants (borneo pygmy ones) from miles away. He directed our boat towards the right tree, and we sat squinting for a minute or so before we saw anything. But once we saw it, it was fantastic watching the animals in the wild. The monkeys come to the river at night, because there are fewer predators, and a whole family sits on a tree overlooking the river. We watched the young ones playing around, and the male making its funny nasal call to shut them up.


Sam is 26. He has never been off Borneo. His family are farmers, and he has a brother and three sisters (I think). He went to his sister's house for christmas, and was really looking forward to it for the days beforehand. He supports Man United. He plays a lot of poker in the evenings. He has only ten days off ever year. He is a legend. A real funky dude, and I'm sure he'd fit in well in a city as well. It was really upliting to get to know a real person from the area and see what they like and how they live. There was a danger in our holiday that we wouldn't manage that, but 3 days with Sam was a good start!

Carbon footprint

I'm not going to ask you to calculate your carbon footprint. I have not done it for myself, because I can't find an accurate way of doing it, and I don't entirely trust these "take 2 minutes to ask 5 questions and we'll tell you" websites.

However, I was interested that the front of Walkers crisps now has a little logo telling me that 75g Carbon dioxide was emitted for my pack of crisps. This time, before I thought about the accuracy of the figure - which is coming later - I thought to myself, I have NO idea how much that is - let's think about that for a second.

We can work it out scientifically. Do you remember GCSE science? Let's try a quick calculation (it won't hurt, promise). If you remember, we work in moles. A mole is just a number of atoms that is convenient. Carbon dioxide is CO2, so in each mole of CO2 there is one mole of C and 2 moles of O. A mole of C weighs 12 grams and a a mole of O weighs 16 grams, so we have 44 grams for a mole of CO2. My 75g of CO2 is just over one and a half moles. That's about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^24) atoms, occupying about 35 litres. OK, so atoms are so small that I can't tell if that's a number that I should worry about, but 35 litres of CO2! Just for a pack of crisps?! That seems like loads! I can only assume that all goods we buy are like that, so we must generate roomfulls each day. To me it seems ridiculous that we can produce so much, how can that possibly work out if everyone is doing that?

How accurate is this figure of 75g then? Maybe it has already been taken into account, maybe not, but apart from producing the crisp and the packet, there is the transport from the factory to the shops, the possibility of people driving to the shops to buy the crisps and the cost of disposal of the rubbish. Cost of disposal includes bin lorries, rubbish sorting and decomposition of the material used in the packaging which may or may not itself produce carbon dioxide(?). Looking in even more detail at the bin lorries, they must deal with producing all of their goods like the lorries themselves and the fluorescent uniforms (although if people wear them each day maybe they buy fewer clothes?), they have to maintain the lorries, buy petrol, the employees have to get to work, they have to send out notices when bin days are changed, and also hand out bins, which must themselves be produced. Where do you stop? How can you say that my bag of crisps has a 75g carbon footprint? Does responsibility for the bag and it's footprint pass to the waste disposal people at some point? The whole calculation is much too large for anyone to find a meaningful figure in my opinion.

According to Gordon Brown yesterday, the UK produces 654 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. That's a lot more litres. In fact, it's over 300,000,000,000,000 litres. If you sat in the middle of a ball with that much volume, you would have to go about a marathon distance to get to the edge (43km, 27 miles). Bear in mind that carbon dioxide is naturally found in concentrations of one part in 4000 and you see that the amount of carbon dioxide we are producing will have a major effect on the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

No wonder something's going on.

Ramblings on life's meanderings

These days I have been remembering what it is like to feel lonely. It's not that I don't see anyone, or even that I never do anything, but I do lack seeing many people who I count as being my closest friends. Being at university when everyone else is away means that as well as missing the people who will not come back (who I mentioned here), I miss those who will be coming back next year. Luckily, Rachel has mainly been in Cambridge, but she has gone on holiday as well now. To cap it all, I have been arguing with Sonia a bit, and while we care about each other enough to stay in contact, I worry for her especially, and also for our close friendship.

When I went home last week, I found that the Georges (a group of friends from home) are all away, either working or on holiday so that, while I had a very good time with the family (and for much of the time I genuinely enjoyed myself and relaxed), I still felt like I had not seen most of my friends for far too long!

Going to Edinburgh cheered me up though. I went with Pete, Lizzy, Richard and Chris, and we had long enough to have small-talk, in-jokes, arguments, debates, bored moments, events and shared memories for later. It was great! From feeling a bit down at the start, I was my normal happy self within 24 hours. We saw lots of festival shows: a musical I actually enjoyed (Tony Blair the Musical), a disturbing, thought-provoking film (Extraordinary Rendition), a slightly sketchy old man singing songs about (mainly) sex, a play that actually makes me want to read 19th century fiction (Crime and Punishment) and a play so horrific that I actually threw up (no way it could possibly have been food poisoning, nope, no chance) (Dracula, featuring Chris's brother Matthew). We also explored Edinburgh; here's a picture of Chris and Richard enjoying the view on Arthur's seat, which might be named after Richard's grandfather



Then I came back. I'm still in quite a good mood, but my room is trying its best to annoy me. When I came in, the window was leaking. Then the light crackled and went off. And I had no food in to make for dinner, and no bulb in my lamp. I looked at the time to discover that my alarm clock had run out of batteries and stopped. But I'm not feeling as bad as I was ten days ago, so it has failed. Haha! Now I must sleep, good night

Big child or young adult?

There are very few photos on here so far, so I thought I'd add one. It comes from a ball I went to last month, and I spent quite a long time on this ride, enough to feel just a little bit ill by the end!

I'm going to live near a kiddies' playpark from september, and I can't wait to go on the swings after dark (in the evening so I don't scare away little kids when I use their swings in the daytime). I love swings... they can be exciting and fun, or a quiet and reflective activity, or just a place to chat to friends, they are great!